William Masters (CMC-’18)

Fellow Bio: William Masters is a recent graduate from Claremont McKenna College (CMC). He attended CMC for three years, and majored in Economics with an Emphasis in Environmental Economics. Starting this fall, William will be attending Columbia University in the City of New York, where he will major in Civil Engineering and minor in Sustainable Engineering. Some of his hobbies include working on organic farms, long boarding, hiking, skiing and working out. As a Hixon Fellow, he will be synthesizing and analyzing monetary evaluation methods for the environmental burden of disease in Germany. In particular, the methods he will be researching are: Contingent Evaluation, Value of a Statical Life, Cost of Illness and the Cost of Productivity Lost. He will be comparing and contrasting the four methods, looking to identify the strengths and weaknesses of each method, and then provide suggestions on how to fix the limitations and utilize the benefits of his findings. His research will add to a two year project for the EPA in Germany.

Saleck Tikande (PZ-’19)

Fellow Bio: Saleck Tikande is a Pitzer student majoring in Environmental Analysis and minoring in International and Intercultural Studies. As a Hixon fellow, he will be helping Louis and the Hixon Center prepare a comprehensive sustainability report to submit to the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education’s (AASHE) Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System (STARS). He will be gathering the information and data necessary for successful submission and certification, which will help measure HMC’s environmental sustainability performance. Some of his hobbies include drumming, hiking and dancing. He is hoping to pursue his education in sustainability and environmental policy in developing countries.

Ailin Zhang (HMC-’18)

Ailin Zhang (HMC-’18)

Project Title: Laboratory testing of plant absorption of contaminants in oil and gas wastewater used for agricultural crop irrigation in California

Project Supervisor: Tanja Srebotnjak

Fellow Bio: Ailin is a rising senior at Harvey Mudd College, pursuing a General Chemistry major. She is working with Professor Srebotnjak on a project determining the heavy metal uptake of citrus trees (cutie variety), due to wastewater. She will be watering orange trees in the Parsons parking lot with water treated with heavy metals, as well as collecting soil and plant samples bi-weekly to perform a microwave-assisted acid digestion. The supernatant is then filtered and diluted in order to run an ICP-OES analysis on the heavy metal concentration. While not doing lab work, she likes caring for her marimos (Yobé and Bobé) and mouse (Jerry), but she mainly watches TV and sleeps at the same time.